The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-05-11
Something for Nothing.

There have always been people bent
on the impossible task of trying to get
something out of nothing; and with
some reason, because, paradoxical as
it may sound, they have often seen it
done. The man who sits on his own
hired front doorstep, contemplating
his early friends house across the way
the house with grapevine over the
front door and raspberry patch in the
rear, and a general air of comfort
thinks he sees case in point; for did
not he and John start together, each
with nothing but his two hands, and
has not John got forehanded, while he
is just where he started, or, if anything,
lower down? He fails to connect his
neighbours prosperity with one spring
long ago, when the two mems paths
really began to divide. They lived
then in the same block, each with a
small back yard devoted solely to the
culture of old hoop-skirts, tin cans,
ashes and burdock. This spring John,
as soon as the frost left the ground,
began to get up at daylight and put off
his suppers until after dark, to gain
time to clear off the rubbish and start
peas and potatoes. His neighbor used
to sit on the back doorstep watching
the hoeing, and enjoyed an occasional
gift of fresh vegetables; but when urged
to follow the example, the next year,
shook his head. "Not l. Ten hours
day is enough for any man to work."
so John hired his garden, too, at the
price of an occasional mess of lettuce
or cucumbers, which the recipient es-
pecially delighted in as an instance of
getting something for nothing. He
tried to do this in other ways, too, such
as betting on horse-races and buying
lottery-tickets, and if for the large sums
thus invested he occasionally got back
a dollar he spent it in treating the
boys or in taking his wife out to ride
for why shouldn't he take the good of
something that was clear good luck and
had cost him nothing. AS they began
so have they kept on-the one trying to
get something for which he had not
labored, the other improving all the
seemingly useless spare minutes, with
the result that one envies the other and
sometimes makes cynical remark
about fortune being rightly called
she," because, like woman, she
favors the best looking, for the hard
worker and the thinker is the one who
keeps his youth longest. There are
many ways of bringing large results
from small opportunities that are
meritorious, being blessing to all con-
cerned. The farmer who makes a
rocky pasture into fertile field or
who makes a few grains of wheat
change into a bushel; the milliner
who takes handful of old lace and
brings from it handsome new bonnet;
the mechanical genius who finds new
combination for wheels and bars and
pulleys, so that they will work twice as
who cultivates the one good germ he
sees in boys character, until the
scapegOat of the neighborhood develops
into its pride-all these, especially the
aforementioned, are doing what deserves
only praise. But when the gain is all
ones own, and of a kind that can only
be acquired at some other PERSONS eX-
pense, it becomes a different matter
altogether. The other mans loss,
oftentimes, is not considered, because
it is more or less out of sight. He who
would shrink in horror from such a
thing as putting his hand into his
neighbours pocket may cheat him in
horse-trade without conjunction. A
story is now going the rounds of a girl
who went to make a visit with city
friends, taking with her $50, the result
OF careful and loving economy on the
part of her parents, and who lost the
whole-to her host-in friendly game
of cards the evening of her arrival.
This story may be overdrawn. Such
cases are probably few; but how often
does winner in a lottery think of the
hundreds who have lost-even of his
own past luckless ventures? Just now
there is, a speculative craze abroad.
The desire to get wealth without a
fair equivalent has landed one COM
pany in a Mexican desert and Just
missed sending another to bear them
company. 1t is drawing thousands of
dollars into western speculations, at
the expense, sometimes, of home pros
perity. 1t has, so it is said, sent thou
sands more into the dens of southern
lottery sharks, only the victims keep
quiet and only tell of their experiences
when an occasional sum of money
comes back-a bait to catch more vic
Tins. In all such schemes it is safe to
say that the sum of the losses must be
larger than the gains, for lottery man
ayers, land-sharks, etc, are not philan-
thropists, and do not work year after
year for the fun of the thing; but
worse than the losses are the disin-
clination for honest work and the desire
for sudden and wrongly-gotten wealth
which are too often the result of the